The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

• Genre: Action Adventure
• Time Played: 140+ Hours
• Too Short/Long: Definitely too long. I played Breath of the Wild roughly the same amount, but that was because I didn't want to stop, and played all the DLC too.
• Pleased/Disappointed: A mixture, definitely pleased in the sense that it is definitely a good game that I definitely enjoyed, but it's not to cut and dry.
• Why I played: Because it's Zelda, and I was highly anticipating it's release.
• Recommend to others: Yeah, though probably no need to recommend it to anyone as anyone who would be interested isn't gonna be on the fence. I would definitely recommend it to people who didn't think BOTW was filled enough, or somehow didn't offer them enough freedom, also who thought weapons broke too easily.

I really liked Tears of the Kingdom, but just that. I really liked it. I didn't love it, despite potentially many objective improvements over Breath of the Wild. Breath of the Wild just clicked with me more. Tears of the Kingdom feels like a weird middleground between DLC and a new game. It feels like when an MMO(World of Warcraft specifically?) does one of those "world shaking" events that change the entire game environment rather than a whole new game.

I feel like TotK is even more similar to BotW than Oracle of Ages is to Oracle of Seasons. I could be exaggerating but we're talking mostly the same layout of the overworld with some environmental changes and a different set of powers, right?

I also didn't love all the powers. I loved the powers in BotW, and while reversing an objects time and going through the ceiling are GREAT. I just don't love building stuff in games. I find building stuff to be a chore. Combining objects could be cool, but with everything being expendable, it just becomes even more stressful than the weak weapon durability of BotW. I don't care what anyone says, the weapons DEFINITELY are more durable in this game, and far more plentiful. I was never without weapon and I could often take out several hordes of enemies with a single weapon. Not something possible in BoTW.

Another thing, is I often cited that very fact as being what I LIKED about BoTW. Not getting to use weapons as much forced me to improvise. In this, I often just fused a weapon and wailed on enemies. This isn't going to be everyones experience because the game wants you to build tools to take down enemies. Which I did plenty of, but I don't enjoy doing that. Not only that, but enemies HP is FAR too padded in this game. You can put together some of the strongest weapon combinations, 100+ attack power, and still just be sitting there beating on a helpless enemy who takes dozens of attacks before falling.

By time I finished the game, everything was just becoming so tedious. So many White and Silver enemies with so much padded health. I don't know what determined the enemies being upgrades. Story Progression? Hearts? Shrines Completed? Playtime?

Either way, I was getting to a point where fighting REGULAR enemies, 1V1 was harder than fighting bosses, or at least as/more tedious. There are clearly ways to cheese some final bosses so they take like a second to beat, but fighting a shitty goblin shouldn't dozens of attacks from a strong weapon while I have attack up armor and attack up food. Whatever is "balancing" the game, isn't actually balancing it. Like I definitely feel like those strong versions of enemies should exist, but maybe only in select locations, not EVERYWHERE. Otherwise all my progression feels pointless. I don't ever feel stronger. All my growth is meaningless if enemies get equally stronger. And this isn't even a skill issue. I basically never died in this game with a few exceptions that were simply neglect to heal in a shrine or something. It's just padded difficulty. This is exactly what I hated and complained about in Immortal: Fenyx Rising.

So when I got to that point, where I was feeling like everything I was doing was too tedious to be fun, that's when I decided to wrap it up and just follow main story. Don't get me wrong, generally I enjoyed my time. But it wasn't only the end that had me feel like things were tedious. So many side quests and such are unfulfilling. Someone asks several things of you, leading you in a questline with several layered task, then is just like, well, thanks! And gives you and energy potion. Great awesome. Definitely worth it. I did many, but so many side quests felt unfulling. 

I guess it's a result of all the main powers being available pretty early, but they could have had more meaningful items behind some of these side quests, like the armor pieces, or some of the upgrade items. Instead of stuffing the world with extra shrines that have no puzzles in them(I get it, because they are a puzzle or challenge to get inside them to begin with), but there could have been less shrines and some heart pieces or energies pieces or something hidden behind quests, or armor pieces or other stuff that wasn't just a quest to go to the place where a chest is that you don't even need a quest for. It could have done better to motivate me and done better to reward me. Thanks for the 20 rupees, I guess.

Oh and money. Money is FAR too hard to come by in this game for all the stuff you have to spend it on. I grinded so many mini games I don't wanna see another mini game for... awhile. I think in most cases this is probably the best bang for your buck money wise. There are some quests where you get reward a 100 rupees or more, and that feels like something. But getting a food item I could make myself or 20 rupeees, in this economy, is robbery.

While I liked the depths and sky islands, I feel like they were tacked on too much. I feel like there was a combination of either procedural generated content when building it out or just too much reuse of assets. The depths despite covering almost the entirety of the underground have A FEW unique locations, and the sky islands, besides it's two or three unique locations, it just a smattering of 4 or 5 different stock pieces. It all just grew very tiresome once the novelty wore off.

I do have a lot to complain about. In the end, I just don't think it was as good or as inspired as BoTW despite what improvements it made. The improvements? The world is far more fleshed out. There is a ton of stuff everywhere, but that is to say, there is almost no room. You're constantly bombarded with more and more things and there is always something else to distract you from what you are doing. It's a mixed bag, but if you felt like BoTW had an empty world, you just can't feel that in ToTK. I already covered how weapons are more durable. But I also feel like they are less varied? Natively anyway. And you come across a lot more ugly ones, and less cool ones. This is supposed to be subverted by combining them with things, but, that only goes so far. But I never lacked for weapons. In fact I seldom had more than 1 free bow slot, and practically never had a free shield slot. I was so full up I often was replacing only partially used shields with new ones. Weapons, at worse I'd be down a few, or have a couple things a little weaker than I wanted, but usually I had time replacing weapons because I already had too many good ones.

Then there is a the ultrahand. Grabbing things and manipulating the environment can be fun, and there are tons of cool zonai tools to do it with that makes the game fun, I am sure. But I just don't care about building stuff like I am sure other people do. I'm sure that alone will give the game a greatly extended lifespan, and for some even make it game of the year, but it's just not for me.

One more thing to get to is the story stuff. Which was fine. I feel like maybe they had it a bit more fleshed out for ToTK? But what I found so weird is how much of it COMPLETELY ignore anything that happened in BotW. It's so weird and I feel like I'm being pranked. Like this is OBVIOUSLY a sequel, and there are plenty of references to BoTW, but so many things are treated as if they just DON'T exist. People forget who you are. People REFUSE to acknowledge the previous events. It's just so weirdly disconnected. All the Ancient stuff? JUST GONE. Just replaced with the Zonai entirely. You can't have TWO ancient things. You can't have the ancient and even more ancient stuff. All past things have to be from the same past! It's such a weird choice that I just don't like. But also, so much of the story in this game was just repetition of them retelling the same events over and over, so maybe it didn't have much more? It was all so cliche too, like no zingers at all, and it's fine to play things straight, but it was so boring to predict literally everything that was about to be said/done.

BoTW immediately became one of my favorite Zelda games of all time and so I was anticipating Tears of the Kingdom with a childlike glee in which I seldom have to hype up games prior to their release, but this kind of took the wind out of my sails and grounded me. This is why I usually take a casual approach to my anticipation for games. I'll play it when I play it. I'll decide how I feel about it when I play it. I try not to hype things up and this is why.

I'm not saying I am disappointed by the game, I shouldn't expect every new game to be a new all time favorite. It just seems like it had the potential and all the ingredients for it and just missed the mark in so many places. I obviously enjoyed the game. I can't imagine playing a game for 140+ hours I didn't like. It's just some missed potential on what I hoped to be a new favorite Zelda that barely makes the top 10.